Chapter 20

Aurora

I took off my apron and hung it on one of the hooks in the kitchen at the Bar and Grill, phone in my hand, staring at the message he’d sent me. It was the weirdest moment, receiving it. The calls had been one thing, they were easier to ignore, just a push of a button or stowing the cell in the bag under the bar but this? These were his words, written out and sent directly to me.

And they made me fucking angry.

Why should I allow him a moment to apologize when it was both our faults? And why did it infuriate me that the paparazzi had come between us? I should’ve seen it coming from a mile away.

He was Jarryd Tombs, and I was the new stylist, apparently.

Except I wasn’t. I was done being the one who got overlooked or judged, and he needed to know that. No, I didn’t want his apology. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind.

What would he have done if the roles were reversed? Would he have hung around in the background like some lovesick puppy dog while I was flocked by reporters and photographers? Doubtful. He had enough of an ego that he’d have stormed off, too.

“You all right?” Jerr nudged me.

“What? Oh yeah, fine.”

“It’s just, you’ve been staring at the hook on the wall for about three minutes now.” Jerry nodded to my apron.

“Sorry,” I said and managed a laugh. “I guess I’ve got a lot to think about.” I bid him a farewell then left the kitchen and the restaurant behind. Outside, darkness bathed Moondance in anonymity. The street lamps provided the only light, and clouds hung low, hiding the stars and the moon itself.

I had to go. I adjusted the straps of my handbag, felt the cold tube of pepper spray in the side pouch then set off down the road. The cabin wasn’t too far removed from the road, far enough to keep the quiet, and the dirt paths to it were small enough to allow only foot traffic.

I’d walked the path out to the cabin countless times. Moondance was safe enough, but nerves still jerked inside me. The day had frazzled me. Chewed me up and spit me out.

“Chill,” I muttered. This wasn’t the worst thing that’d ever happened to me.

So, my ex was an asshole, and the man I’d fallen for—fallen for, good god—happened to be totally inaccessible and probably didn’t need my drama in his life. No big deal.

I strode down the sidewalk under lampposts that cast vignettes of light on the concrete and road. The surrounding town fell back, and I found the path I’d walked so often in the two years I’d lived in the cabin with my mother.

I entered the forest, surrounding myself with the gentle rustle of leaves and the noises of all the tiny creatures of the night. Rodents scurrying through the grass, the hoot of an owl. Sounds that had scared me as a kid now soothed me.

The fool walking ahead, spontaneous and free, but unthinking of what might lie ahead.

I snuck beneath the branches, over roots and rocks, across the dirt path toward the cabin in the woods. It reminded me of one of the childhood fairytales my mother had read me as a girl, tucked up in bed. Sweet stories or ones about witches and children leaving breadcrumb trails behind to find their way home.

Every story had captured my imagination, but nothing had ever truly captured my heart. Until now.

I brushed a few leaves aside and came out into the clearing at the lake. Across from me, the cabin was shrouded by darkness. I scanned the space in front of it and spotted him. Jarryd’s shape, broad-shouldered, seated on the bench beside the lake. He had his phone in his lap, and the blue light from the screen illuminated his slightly hooked nose, the smooth forehead, his eyes gazing at the screen. Fixed on it.

I slunk around the side of the lake, observing him. My heart pit-pattered faster. I cracked a twig, and he looked up.

“Aurora?” he whispered and switched off the cell phone’s screen. “Is that you?”

“No, it’s the rider of the apocalypse.”

Jarryd hesitated then rose from the bench, a tall, dark shape beside the squat outline of the bench. “Weren’t there three of them?”

I walked to him then, right up to him, and peered up into his eyes. The tiniest glint of light—a parting in the clouds above to allow a sliver of moonlight through.

“I’m so glad you came,” he said.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I replied.

“You did, and you came,” Jarryd said. “Listen, before you say anything, I want you to know how sorry I am for what happened today.” His smell, the light cologne he wore, that same musk of his skin, inhabited my nostrils and scoured the anger from my mind. “I can’t imagine how you felt.”

“I bet you can’t. I bet you haven’t been in a situation where you were the fan boy doting on someone more important than you,” I replied.

“I’m not more important than you, Aurora. Shit, I’m not more important than anyone else. We’re all part of this,” he said and opened his arms. “The planet. I don’t know. I’m not good at this philosophical stuff.”

“I get what you’re trying to say, and it’s sweet.” It was sweet, but it didn’t change much. I’d felt miniscule this afternoon. How could he consider me seriously when I was so far beneath his notice? Or rather, he was so far beyond my reach.

“I want you to understand how little all of that means to me,” he said. “The fame. I never cared about it. I only wanted to make movies because I was passionate about it. I love what I do.”

“And I’ll never fit into that world, Jarryd.”

“Don’t say that.” He touched my elbow, and the clouds scudded across the moon and plunged us into darkness again.

My pulse skipped up a notch at the skin contact, his warmth pressed against my bare elbow. I shivered.

“You’re freezing,” he said.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect to come out here after work. I didn’t bring a sweater.”

“Here,” he said and pulled off the t-shirt I’d helped him pick out this afternoon. He handed it to me. “Put it on.”

“You’re half-naked. This is ridiculous, Jarryd.”

“I don’t care. You’re cold. I’m not trying to prove anything to you. I want you to keep warm,” he replied. “Besides, I spent hours on set in freezing cold water for Kill Switch. I can barely feel the wind anymore.”

I accepted the shirt and tugged it on, shuddering again, this time because of the scent it carried. How was I supposed to concentrate on what I had to say with that against my skin? “I’m not a part of your world, and you’re not a part of mine.”

“We’ve discussed this before,” he replied and took my hand, squeezed gently. “It hasn’t changed anything. Not how I’m feeling or how much I want you, Aurora. So why discuss it again?”

“Because we have to.” If I wasn’t firm about this, I’d fall into the same trap all over again. His smell, his touch, and then his embrace. It all led down that path to his bed and then my heart would implode all over again.

“I understand this is difficult for you, and that you have other goals,” he said and stepped closer to me, bathing me in more of that irresistible heat. He ran hot and every cell in my body responded to it. I tingled from head-to-toe. “You want to stay in Moondance. You want to be here and live here in this cabin and be happy.”

“Yes.” I searched for his gaze in the dark but caught nothing except a glint from his eyes. The clouds had covered the sky again and hidden us from each other.

“And I want to get out,” he replied. “This was Felicity’s town, too. You know that.”

“Yes,” I repeated.

“I wanted to get out, to run away from Pride’s Death and the obligations and the memories of what this whole thing meant.”

“You still care about her,” I said, and my heart missed two beats in a row.

“Not really. I care about her as a human being, but not in the way you’re thinking.” Jarryd ran his hands down my arms now, encircled my wrists with his fingers. “I thought I knew what I wanted out of life, and now it’s muddled up.”

“Why were you with her?” The question had burned at me several times during the night. She’d seemed such a bitch every time we’d spoken.

“Felicity was different when we met. She was less cynical, I guess. Always interested in what was best for her career, but she seemed to care about things. She seemed to want the best for others instead of herself.”

“What changed?” I asked.

“I was busy, she was busy, and eventually, she wandered, and I let it happen. I didn’t pay attention to what was going on at the time,” he replied. “Felicity was strong, and I admired that in her. But it wasn’t your type of strength.”

“She seems so…”

“Bitchy?” Jarryd asked and laughed. “Yeah, that’s her now. I think our breakup upset her more than she’s willing to admit. It changed her, and this is the result.”

Was it wrong that I wanted to know more about this? I hadn’t judged him for having dated her, for allowing her to be in his movie even after the breakup, but these were answers I needed to understand who he was inside.

“Felicity is the past. She broke my trust and meeting you, Aurora, was an eye-opener for me.”

“You know, it’s not normal. I feel muddled, too, and it’s scary. It’s not how this is supposed to be.”

“This?” he asked, and his voice, usually so smooth, deep and sturdy, quavered.

“Life. I don’t know. I don’t have everything figured out. You’re the older one, you’re supposed to know where this is going, right?”

He laughed, a soft expression of mirth that drove tingles down my spine. “I’m twenty-eight, I don’t have anything figured out, Aurora. I want to spend time with you, and when I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you. That’s not normal, but normal isn’t where it’s at. You should know that.”

I was the tarot card reader. The fool. “I guess.”

Jarryd drew me into a hug, and I rested my temple against his naked chest, inhaled deeply, and relaxed for the first time all day, since the morning waking up with him and gobbling down fries.

That desire swam between us and goosebumps rose on my back, but at the same time, it was as if I’d found someone I truly liked. It wasn’t just sex. He had a sense of humor, he cared, he was protective, and still, totally out of my league.

“You smell so good,” he muttered and pressed his lips into my hair, inhaled.

I slipped my arms around his waist then felt the muscles down his back, corded, his skin covered in goosebumps too. “You’re cold. You should take your shirt back.”

“No, I’m good,” he said.

I didn’t argue. The wind rose among the trees and whispered through the leaves again. It danced across our skins, as soft as a lover’s kiss. The same kisses we’d shared at this same spot days ago.

“Will you forgive me for earlier today?” he murmured.

“I don’t need to forgive you,” I replied. “You didn’t do anything wrong, really. You did what you had to.”

“I should’ve followed you out, but the fuckers blocked me from moving. Next time, I’ll shove ‘em aside to get to you. You know, I saw the look on your face, and I was like, shit, that’s it. You’re done. You don’t want anything to do with me anymore. I’ve blown it.”

“You’ve blown it with me?” I pulled back and searched for him in the dark. Nothing except a vague outline. I touched his face, ran my fingers over the stubble and felt the soft lips. He kissed my fingertips and breathed in again.

“I thought so. Have I? Have I totally fucked it up?”

“You couldn’t help it that they came after you,” I said.

“They wouldn’t know where I was if it wasn’t for the way I overreacted with your ex the other night,” he replied. “I blew it then, too. I lose my senses around you.”

I probed further, feeling his nose then his eyebrows, eyelids, back down to his lips. He emulated me, feeling my face, cupping my cheeks, pulling me closer, closer.

I held my breath and leaned in for the kiss.

Moonlight danced from the heavens, between two parted clouds and finally illuminated his face, half of it, at least, and the cabin behind him.

“Beautiful,” he said.

Jarryd brought his lips to mine and brushed his heat across them. The light pressure sent tingles from the contact down my chest and through to my core. Just that one kiss and my head spun.

I inhaled and separated from him. “Wow,” I whispered. “Why is that possible?”

“What?”

“That feeling.”

Jarryd tucked my hair behind my ear and tugged on it. “I don’t understand how any of this is possible but I’m not going to question it. This is the happiest I’ve been.”

“You don’t mean that. How can that possibly be true? You’re an actor. You go to parties and events, you make money doing what you love. How—?”

“I don’t know how but it is. Maybe it’s because all of those things are the material, the outside shit, and what I feel now is…” He trailed off and let the implication hang in the air.

Barely a week since he’d first stepped into my tent at the fairgrounds and there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t want the end to that sentence. Not even the parts that were scared of what the future might hold.

“You know this won’t end well,” I managed.

“Why?”

“Because you’ve got Pride’s Death to think of, and a reputation to uphold, and I don’t fit into that plan. Face it, Jarryd, this is a fantasy and all fantasies come to an end.” Just like the ones my mother had told me when I was a kid.

“How can you be this negative?” he asked and kept touching me, fingers to my throat now, as if to feel my pulse. “You’re the one who believes in fate and destiny, crystals, palm reading, and everything else.”

“So? I’ve spent years on the road with and without my mother, experiencing the worst and best of what humanity has to offer,” I replied. “I’ve always been a realist because it was forced on me, and I’ll be a realist now, in particular. No matter how we might feel about each other, this can’t end well for either of us.” Especially not for me. Yet I’ve made the choice to continue, and if he kisses me now I won’t say no. I’d fall into bed with him all over again.

“Aurora—”

More of the cloudbank thinned, and the moon illuminated the cabin in full, including the sign pegged in front of it in the long grass. For Sale. No, it didn’t say that. It said…

My stomach dropped into my feet. “Oh my god.”

“What? What is it?”

“I’m too late,” I said, and swallowed around the lump in my throat. I pointed at the sign.

SOLD.

“I’m too late! Someone bought it!”

“What?” Jarryd let go of me and spun toward the cabin and its sign. “What the fuck? I thought no one wanted this place except you.”

I shook my head, mute. This was exactly what I got for shifting focus from what I wanted to the man I couldn’t possibly have. This was my punishment from those fates and destinies he’d mentioned.

I shuffled to the bench, sat down, and pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes. Memories flooded me.

Mom baking cinnamon crunch cookies in the kitchen while I did homework in this same spot, the scent drifting out to me through the open kitchen windows, along with her humming, a low, pleasant and tuneless sound.

Christmas lights in the window, sparkling, welcoming me home after a day at work. The cold snow surrounding the cabin, and us shoveling it out. Building a snowman together, frolicking around, a snowball fight. Unwrapping presents inside by the fireplace.

All the true happiness I’d had in my life, the certainty, had been condensed into the two years we’d stayed in this cabin together. Sure, she’d tried her best to keep me healthy and happy on the road, but she’d been in a constant state of stress and I’d picked up on that.

The cabin was everything. And now it was gone.